Good News Perfume Enthusiasts: The Fragrance Industry is Growing in a Big Way

Marc Jacobs Daisy Love Campaign Photo: Alasdair McLellan via: Fashion Gone Rogue

Many perfume brands are working on innovating and creating new, unique scents that consumers have never smelled before. These brands have been utilizing technological advances to create scents and customize them to their consumers. The fragrance industry has been seeing a boom post pandemic and many people have been looking at the perfume market more and more. Fragrance sales are predicted to grow by 5.5% from 2020 to 2025. Fragrances have that emotional connection to consumers that they don’t get with other beauty products. Scents have now become a form of self expression and self love. Many consumers layer different fragrances on top of each other and experiment on whats works for them because fragrances are all about individuality.

Gucci Bloom Campaign Photo: Glen Luchford via: Gucci

Like many other industries today, the perfume industry is figuring out how to be more digitally sound and use technology to enhance consumer experiences. AI has been a big buzzword within recent years and it has taken over the perfume industry. The first AI perfume was developed and sold in 2019 by the company O Boticàrio with IBM and Symrise. These AI scents are created by an AI assistant called Philyria, who draws scent data from Symrise’s scent formulas. It processes specific scents based on various forms of data such as scent popularity with various demographics. Philyria can also predict the scent trends of specific countries or regions.  

Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur Perfume campaign starring Harry Styles Photo: Glen Luchford via: Gucci

Another AI perfume is ScenTronix in 2020. This AI perfume creates customized perfume for consumers. This is done by customers filling out surveys in store about scents they like, their personality, etc. Based on these responses, an AI creates a perfume for the customers that it thinks the person would like. Of course, customers get a small trial size to see if they like the scent before they buy a full size. Customers are also able to give the AI feedback and the AI is able to take the feedback to fine tune itself for future customers. 

Marc Jacobs Daisy Love Campaign Photo: Alasdair McLellan via: Fashion Gone Rouge 

Another thing in fragrance innovation is the rise of clean and biotechnology fragrances. Biotech is the combination of biology and technology relating to living organisms. It is used in various ways. In the case of fragrances, this can be with forms of nature such as flowers. Scientists can use biotechnology is copy a fragrance coming from nature and blend specific natural fragrance molecules to create a specific scent.The fragrance market is trying to grow more  sustainable so many fragrance brands have been turning to more natural ingredients to create scents and turning away from synthetic addictives that can be potentially harmful. 

Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur Perfume campaign Photo: Glen Luchford via: Gucci

Founder of perfume brand Perfumehead, Daniel Patrick Giles said to Who What Wear,  “The next big trend in fragrance is how technology is driving innovation. As the plant world becomes more heavily impacted by climate, technology is driving incredible innovation through extraction technologies and renewable processes, green chemistry, and biotechnology,” he said. This will set the industry up for the future and ensure we are protecting Mother Nature while still having access to beautiful scents.” 

Photo: Marc Jacobs via: Teen Vogue

The  fragrance industry is just beginning to experiment with technology and other digital enhacements. Fragrances are in higher demand now and consumers are beginning to think about what scents they like and want to try. The fragrance industry is no longer an after thought. This industry has a scent for everyone and with the power of AI and biotechnology, consumers can get customized and catered scents specifically for them. The future of the fragrance industry looks bright for consumers and with the increase of technology usage, fragrances are going to become even more popular with consumers.